'How do you think he does it, Scribble?' he would ask, sucking on his fag.
'Don't know.'
'I reckon it's something to do with them feathers.'
'What, the birds' feathers he keeps? Why's that?'
1 reckon they're Vurt feathers.'
'Vurt? No way. Not Vurt.'
'Got to be, I reckon. What do you reckon?'
'Don't know what I reckon. Not yet.'
We'd read a whole lot about these Vurt feathers in the papers, how they were supposed to be the best recording medium ever, even better than fractal cassettes. How music sounded more than alive on them, how they contained the best games of all time, how you could record all kinds of knowledge on them, knowledge that nobody yet knew about, even. There were loads of rumours about them. How you had to put them in your mouth, just to get the feathers to play back. So they said, anyway, the papers. I don't know, it all seemed a bit silly to my mind, but Eliot was always getting hooked on crazy rumours. Anything to get out of his head, and into some other kind of dream. He was growing up so quickly.
'But they have to be blue, don't they?' I'd ask him. 'Vurt feathers, I mean. That's what I read anyway. And Slippy ain't got any blue ones, not that I've ever seen.'
'Nah, they don't have to be blue.'
They don't?'
'Nah, that's just the legal ones.'
'You mean there's others?'
'Sure. Black ones, for instance- Don't tell me you've never heard of the black feathers.'
'No.'
'Black ones are the best. They're pirate copies. Illegal, like. Real snazzy. And Slippy's got loadsa black ones, hasn't he?'
'Sure, he's got loadsa black ones, doesn't mean they're Vurt feathers though. Vurt feathers aren't even on the market yet, not unless you've got a ton of cash anyway. And Slippy ain't got that kind of money, no way. Where's he gonna get a Vurt feather from? I reckon they're just normal feathers, like a blackbird's feathers for instance.'
'You reckon?'
'Yeah, that's what I reckon.'
'Well I think they're Vurt feathers, and I think that's how he gets to control the insects.'
We were just two kids with nothing better to do than lie in the long grass, smoking fags, listening to the candle bugs popping all around us, and playing with our very own tame candle bug, making its arse catch fire again and again until it was all used up. Just two kids talking about stuff we knew nothing about.
I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised at what happened next, knowing how Eliot's mind worked. And knowing how he didn't mind stealing things now and then, like comics and stuff, copies of the Game Cat magazine for instance, fags and stuff, or even, on one occasion, a pin-up of Interactive Madonna, just peeled it off the wall, rolled it up, walked out with it under his arm. But that was from shops, I never thought he'd nick things off his friends or his family.
So when he told me to meet up with him, about two weeks later, with the holidays nearly over and everything, I was expecting one last bug hunt before school started up again. I even turned up with the net and a jar. I guess I was right, in a way.
'You nicked it?' I said.
'Sure I did.'
Eliot had taken his shirt off. It sure was hot, that summer.
'Off your uncle?'
'Yeah, right out of his bedroom. I went round, asking if he wanted anything from the shops. He said he'd make a list, and while he was doing that, while his back was turned, I just nicked the first feather I could find.'
'Bloody hell! Let's have a look, then.'
'Careful with it.'
Eliot handed me the feather, the black feather. I held it by the tip, as though it was alive, or something, like it was dangerous. I spun it around, and the warmth of the sun seemed to catch in the flights, glittering.
'You see the way it sparkles?' Eliot asked. 'The colours? The pink bits?'
'Yeah.'
'It's not just black, you see. It's got stuff added to it.'
'Just colours, is all.
Just a tiny bit of pink in it, is all. What does that mean, pink in it?'
'Don't know. But that's where the knowledge is, in the colours. Didn't you read that?'
'Yeah, I read that. Doesn't mean it's a Vurt feather, though.'
'Only one way to find out.'
'What? You mean?'
'Let's do it.'
'Put it in our mouths? No way!'
'You scared, is that it? Scared of a feather?'
'That's not it, no.'
'What is it then?'
'You shouldn't have nicked it. Slippy will kill you.'
'So let's do it then, before he finds out.'
'OK, but you do it. You do it on your own. I'll just watch you doing it.'
'No. You're not supposed to do Vurt on your own. Didn't you read that?'
'Yeah. Yeah, I read that. Don't do it on your own.'
'So?'
'You reckon this will tell us how to tame candle bugs?'
'That's it, Scribble.'
'OK. But you first, then.'
'No, you first.'
'Why me first?'
'Because I'll do it, and then you won't do it.'
'How do I know you won't do the same?'
'Because I want to do it. Do you understand?'
'I understand.'
'Good. Give it here, then.'
So I give the feather back to Eliot. He tells me to open my mouth, which I do. Wider, he says. I open wider, wide as I can, just to get it over with. And he takes the feather, and he lays it against my lip, and it touches my tongue.